Behind These Hazel Eyes
by PhantomElphaba
Summary: Based on the Kelly Clarkson song. Read and review.


**Oh-bee kay-bah-dee, as my Alg. 2 teacher would say. Wow. Two fics in one night. I am good.  
'Nother KC song-fic. RENT-based this time. Joanne's thoughts around early December of...1990, I think. Whatever year the movie ends. (Actually, it starts around Mid-October of that year, jumps to Angel's funeral, then goes to December.) She's kinda depressed about her break-up with Maureen. Oh, and the very end will probably be abit out of character (OOC?)  
Don't own RENT or the song.

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Behind These Hazel Eyes

How long had it been since Maureen had left? A couple months.  
_'Funny…seems like only a day.'  
_When they were together, she had been a different person. Before she had met Maureen, she had hidden her sexuality from the world, as if ashamed of it. But when Maureen held her for the first time, her fear had melted away, replaced by the confidence to be who she was.  
In those days, she would drift to sleep with Maureen beside her, and awake the next morning feeling so regenerated. Now, when she did manage to sleep, it was fitful, and she often woke up in the middle of the night, tears streaming down her face.

**_Seems like just yesterday  
You were a part of me  
I used to stand so tall  
I used to be so strong  
Your arms around me tight  
Everything, it felt so right  
Unbreakable, like nothin' could go wrong  
Now I can't breathe  
No, I can't sleep  
I'm barely hanging on_**

Joanne was a total wreck. All of her friends told her so. At first, she had tried so hard to keep her feelings shut up in a bottle. But the bottle had been shattered from the magnitude of the emotions. Her break up with Maureen had been enough. But then Mimi and Roger had gone through a storm, and the heartbroken, junkie dancer had chosen Joanne's shoulder to lean on, to cry on.  
_'Damnit! I can't hold everybody else up!"_ She thought angrily in her empty apartment. The apartment she had once shared with Maureen.

**_Here I am, once again  
I'm torn into pieces  
Can't deny it, can't pretend  
Just thought you were the one  
Broken up, deep inside  
But you won't get to see the tears I cry  
Behind these hazel eyes_**

'_I was such an idiot,'_ Joanne thought as she lay in bed, crying. _'I told her I loved her. How could I have been so stupid? Mark told me how she was. How she'd keep me dangling and mangle my heart…Oh, why didn't I believe him?'  
'Because you didn't want to believe him,' _another voice in her head whispered cruelly. _'You wanted to believe that she would be different. Isn't that what you told him? "It's different with me"? Please. Deep down, you knew he was right. But she made you feel good. She accepted you, unlike all your old "friends." You wanted that. To feel accepted.'  
_As the voice continued berating her, Joanne buried her head in her pillow and sobbed harder.

**_I told you everything  
Opened up and let you in  
You made me feel alright  
For once in my life  
Now all that's left of me  
Is what I pretend to be  
So together, but so broken up inside  
'Cause I can't breathe  
No, I can't sleep  
I'm barely hangin' on_**

'_Will this nightmare never end?!'_ Joanne thought a few days later as she sat in the pew of the church. It was Halloween. Normally, Joanne loved Halloween. She loved the costumes, and the candy…But now, she hated it. She felt tears welling in her eyes as Collins approached the casket that carried his lover. He began to quietly sing a love song. Soon, everyone stood, tears on every face. Joanne found herself singing out, not only for Collins, but specifically to Maureen, hoping she would know how she felt. But Maureen was to absorbed in her own grief to notice Joanne's

**_Here I am, once again  
I'm torn into pieces  
Can't deny it, can't pretend  
Just thought you were the one  
Broken up, deep inside  
But you won't get to see the tears I cry  
Behind these hazel eyes_**

After they had held a graveside memorial for Angel, the group began to disperse. Mimi tried to talk to Roger, but Benny, asshole that he was, said she'd told him she wouldn't speak to Roger again. When Maureen asked who told Benny he could tell Mimi who she could and couldn't talk to, Joanne started to ask how Maureen could stick her nose in other people's business, but Maureen cut her off.  
Joanne totally lost it. Then Mimi lost it with Roger. They all got into an argrument while Mark and Benny tried to break it up. Finally, Collins made them realize that they were wrong to be so inconsiderate of him. They finally departed. Joanne realized as she walked away that, though she was crying, no tears were falling. She had run out of them.

**_Swallow me then spit me out  
For hating you, I blame myself  
Seeing you it kills me now  
No, I don't cry on the outside  
Anymore..._**

Two months went by. Roger had gone to Santa Fe like he'd said, Mark had continued working at the news studio, and Collins had gone back to his teaching job at MIT. And the others? Well, Mimi started going to a drug rehab, but quit after awhile and started using drugs again. She eventually quit her job. Maureen continued performing, or at least trying to. No one seemed to want her to perform after the protest nearly a year ago. And Joanne put all her energy into helping Mimi cope. At the same time, her wounds had almost healed. They were still tender, but she could move on. She was beginning to think that everything would work out all right.  
Then Mimi dissapeared.

**_Here I am, once again  
I'm torn into pieces  
Can't deny it, can't pretend  
Just thought you were the one  
Broken up, deep inside  
But you won't get to see the tears I cry  
Behind these hazel eyes_**

Everyone was frantic. Roger had come home, and, on that very day, Benny called to say he hadn't seen Mimi in months. They all began looking for her. Joanne made flyers for them to distribute, and, for the time being, she and Maureen were again on speaking terms. Funy how tragedies did that to people.  
Finally, on Christmas eve, they found her. Joanne and Maureen were in the park, and there, under a bench, lay Mimi, huddled up and shivering from a combination of cold and withdrawal. Joanne quickly picked her up and Maureen felt her forehead.  
"She's got a fever," she said, her face grim. "And it's really high."  
"Let's get her home."  
An hour later, Mimi sat bolt upright on Mark and Roger's table. They breathed a sigh of relief when Marueen reported that her fever was breaking.

**_Here I am, once again  
I'm torn into pieces  
Can't deny it, can't pretend  
Just thought you were the one  
Broken up, deep inside_****  
_But you won't get to see the tears I cry  
Behind these hazel eyes_**

Mark dimmed the lights and, before his 5 best friends, previewed the documentary he'd been working on for the past year. At one point, he and Joanne made eye contact, and smiled at each other. Joanne was shocked at the fluttering feelings she felt in her stomach when that happened. She only liked girls! But, when Mark caught her eye again, she shook her head.

'_Maybe some things can change, after all.'_

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_Dodging misc. objects thrown by MauJoa fans. _AAAAH!! Don't hurt me!  
Please read and review. Nicely, please.**


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